Bohdan Rak

ROLE: Program Manager

The project was delivered to a German company, one of the world's leading mapping data and navigation solutions vendors. The company wanted to build the entire embedded navigation system for a premium British automaker.

The objective was to integrate all the navigation functions into the vehicle infotainment device based on the customer's proprietary SDK, including routing, guidance, POI search, map updates, and more. The project scope also covered the design and implementation of a unified human-machine interface that allowed the distribution of the same navigation experiences across a vehicle's head-unit, head-up, and rear-seat displays and the driver's mobile devices. The synchronization of the driver's routes, maps, and personal details was powered by the cloud.

Moreover, the navigation solution was made e-vehicle ready by developing an algorithm that considers charging stations and remaining battery life when building routes.

I was entirely responsible for the program's full software development lifecycle, starting from requirements elicitation up to the delivery of the binaries for integration with the car's infotainment system.

ROLE: Project Management Expert | Coordinator

Our client was a government-owned company in Saudi Arabia. I was temporarily assigned to coordinate portfolio transformation, which was initiated in response to a decrease in the customer satisfaction level.

I coordinated 20+ sub-initiatives to improve the service's quality through improvements in IT project management methodology, operational aspects, team management, etc. The challenge was to assure the efficiency of changes across seven projects, each developing a unique separate solution.

I created a tailored IT PM methodology that was further customized to meet each project's needs. The methodology covered scope management, schedule management, budget management, quality management, risk management, and so on.

Based on architectural, QA, and Spotify-inspired "health check" assessments, I elaborated detailed improvement plans and coordinated them.

In addition, we delivered a custom training program to the portfolio team.

We used Confluence to track the initiative's scope and open action items for scrum masters and keep written status updates. A separate project dashboard (listing each initiative) provided recent status updates for the stakeholders' convenience.

ROLE: Project Management Expert

As a part-time project management expert, I contributed to various activities of a project management office.

Project Management Office Goals:
• Assist the company's transformation from team extension services towards high-value offerings, such as custom software development.
• Increase the effectiveness of the project managers' work.
• Support the company's ISO 9001 certification.

My Contributions:
• Created a "runbook" on project estimation, which covered the effort, schedule, and budget estimation of IT projects.
• Composed a "runbook" on risk management.
• Tailored a PMBOK-based project management methodology that described mandatory processes grouped in process groups. It was supported with an extensive template library for project artifacts covering the whole IT project management cycle from project charter to change log, risk log, and so on.
• Built a template library that also included a description of 20+ suggested metrics along with Excel-based charts.
• Authored training on quality management for Agile software development projects.

ROLE: Pre-sales Expert

As project and delivery manager, I coordinated technical teams on the elaboration of commercial proposals aimed at various IT services, including:
• developing custom web-based applications
• migrating from on-premise to public clouds
• provisioning on-site dedicated development teams

ROLE: Agile Project Manager | Requirements Manager
TEAM SIZE: Ten Engineers

The client was a UK-based startup aiming to launch a SaaS platform for corporate planning and performance management. The key objective was to develop a reliable management instrument to help small- and mid-size companies to collect corporate data, track performance, monitor projects, manage and control people, time, and funds in the most intelligent way.

A special focus was put on the development of a feature-rich user interface and advanced user experience. This included developing the API, front end, database, mobile website, and web app.

Initial preparation (feature list, low-fidelity wireframes) was done by the customer, and I launched the Scrum team and linked the team to customer reps located in the UK and Australia. We were also in charge of UX/UI development, coding, testing, deployment, and infrastructure support.

At the initial stage, I also trained the development team and customer representatives on working with Scrum and successfully launched Scrum-based development with all the prescribed roles and events. Later, I contributed to the polishing of requirements (customer's responsibility) and elaboration and prioritization of user stories.

ROLE: Project Director

Being a member of the Ukrainian Scout Organization "Plast" since 1993, in 2011-2012, I served as a project director for a 1-week outdoor gathering (i.e., a jamboree), hosting 2,500 participants for the celebration of the organization's 100th anniversary.

Having joined the project at the very early stages, I organized a steering committee comprising 15 volunteers, each managing a separate service such as camping, entertainment, transportation, catering, etc. Being quite restricted in time, in nine months, we successfully mapped it out, which involved alignment on success criteria with project stakeholders, the definition of goals, and detailed planning for each of the 15 teams, along with preparing for and eventually handling the event.

During the 1-week event, about 500 volunteers were involved; this is the organization's size that I managed.

ROLE: Co-creator

For more than a decade, I've done pro-bono development and hosting administration of my scout organization's web portal. Starting as a website for the local unit, eventually, the project was recognized as a country-level organization's official internet representation.

For many years, the portal served as the primary communication hub for the members of my organization. It provided a wide range of services, including:
• news feed
• knowledge base and articles repository
• forum (phpBB-based)
• photo gallery (Coppermine-based)
• online shop
• mailing lists

Although the obtained skills and knowledge were never commercialized directly, they make me feel fluent when addressing challenges in the information technology realm.